Friday, July 14, 2017

Washing the Old Truck by Hand

It's strange that the main 'event' of the day didn't merit a picture.

After doing the fruit and vegetable shopping up at Langley Farm Market on Kingsway, we came home to a power outage. I wondered why when coming up Columbia Street the first set of traffic lights were out. Wait, the second and third nearer our apartment building were also not functioning. As soon as we pulled into our parking garage, we realized the building was running off of generator power. Luckily the batteries keep the elevators going for hours in case of an outage. It seems, at a nearby construction site, some wires hit against the metallic streetlight pole and shorted out much of the area. People who were around at the time described the sound as an explosion. I missed seeing all the sparks!

So, we were without power. It was a perfect time to wash our truck. That was today's major accomplishment. I used to be fairly religious in washing and waxing each spring. Probably that is why it still looks better than most 21-year-old vehicles on the road. I am pretty sure we did neither task last summer. Perhaps we were under drought warnings not to wash vehicles. Although the old Ranger sits inside most of the time, it somehow collects a lot of dirt and grime. Jay and I attacked it with a bucket, some rags, and a bottle of dish detergent. It looks much better but I might feel a tiny bit stiff tomorrow for all the effort.

By the time we came inside the power was back on. So, we decided to do another task. Tomorrow is our building's trash day. During these quarter-year occasions, we can dispose of items not allowed in the normal garbage. It's a good time to get rid of bulky items such as furniture. We got rid of our extra toilet. After replacing ours, we set the old one on the balcony. I avoided the temptation to plant flowers in it. From this afternoon, the balcony seems bigger.